Boy, 7, suspended from school for throwing imaginary hand grenade

Alex Evans was suspended from school for throwing a pretend hand grenade and trying to save the world. (Fox News)

Here we go again. A 7-year-old Colorado boy was suspended for throwing an imaginary hand grenade on his elementary school playground. Yes, imaginary—as in not real, as in there was absolutely nothing in his hand.

Alex Evans told KDVR-TV that he didn’t throw the pretend grenade at another student. In an effort to “save the world,” Evans said he tossed it into a box that contained “evil forces.” When the grenade landed in the box, Evans pretended that it exploded.

Even though Evans was simply engaging in imaginary play, administrators at Mary Blair Elementary School in Loveland, Colo., decided that the boy broke one of the school’s major rules: no weapons, real or play.

It seems like there must be more to this story but the principal’s account of the situation is the same as Evans: “He threw the pretend grenade at an imaginary box that had something evil inside.”

This isn’t the first time an elementary school has harshly punished a student for playing with an imaginary weapon. More and more of these stories are popping up in the media as schools react to the tragic Newtown shootings, questioning policies, tightening rules and asking how they can prevent similar situations from happening on their grounds.

Last December a 6-year-old boy was suspended from an elementary school in Maryland for forming his fingers into a gun and saying “pow.” Last month in the same state, two 6-year-olds were suspended from White Marsh Elementary School or playing cops and robbers at recess and using their fingers as imaginary guns.

Is it fair to suspend kids for playing with pretend weapons?

Most any parent of a little boy knows that these kids’ behavior is completely normal and age appropriate. I have an 8-year-old who lines up his Lego figures as if they were an army marching in a battle meant to fight evil forces and save planet earth. I’ve also seen my son turn a pencil into a machine gun, a chopstick into a sword, a tennis ball into a hand grenade. For a young boy, hands are for throwing balls, scooping up mac and cheese and shooting imaginary bad guys, and sometimes little sisters and moms.

This behavior can be unsettling for those unfamiliar with it. I certainly was alarmed when my innocent little preschool-aged boy first grabbed his fork at the dinner table, aimed it at his sister and made shooting sounds. I initially created all sorts of rules around gun play: You can pretend to shoot water or bursts of love and happiness but no bullets and you’re not allowed to point your finger guns at people, only at imaginary bad buys.

I quickly realized that my rules were ridiculous and my kind-hearted son who was thrown into tears when he saw that our cat killed a mouse wasn’t violent when he turned his fingers into a gun. He was simply playing.

Most child psychologists will tell you that gun play is normal, even healthy, for a boy. “Since the beginning of recorded time, little boys have enjoyed games in which they project their power into the world, and that means playing with ‘weapons,’” says Michael Thompson, coauthor of The New York Times bestseller Raising Cane: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys. “I have no doubt that ‘cave’ boys pointed sticks at each other in threatening ways, or chucked rocks at one another, or imitated the spear-throwing actions of their fathers.”

Violent video games and movies—now that’s another story. I wonder how this school would react if they learned a kindergartener had watched Rambo at home?